Bailiffs Play Game of Cat and Mouse in Parking Lot

LAGUNA NIGUEL —  Tranquilino Flores must have considered himself lucky when he walked out of South Orange County Municipal Court here three weeks ago.

He had just received his fourth drunk driving conviction in six years and was facing up to three years in state prison. After repeatedly promising not to drive for four years, and Flores got off with a six-month jail sentence.

But less than 15 minutes later, a bailiff arrested Flores as he drove out of the courthouse parking lot in his white pickup truck. The Santa Ana man was brought back to court in handcuffs and sentenced to a year in jail that same day by Municipal Judge Pam Iles.

Officials say what happened to Flores is not uncommon. During the last 18 months, an estimated 100 drivers have been arrested in the court’s parking lot mere minutes after their licenses were suspended, their arrests part of a cat-and-mouse game in which bailiffs hide behind bushes and crouch behind parked cars and buildings to see if suspended drivers defy court orders not to get behind the wheel.

Officials of the state Department of Motor Vehicles say the program in South County Municipal Court is probably the only systematic law enforcement effort in California to catch motorists who drive with suspended licenses.

At least 2%, or 400,000, of the state’s 20 million motorists drive with suspended licenses, DMV spokesman Bill Gengler said.

“It’s a huge problem. especially when there are such large numbers of them out there,” Gengler said. “We are not aware of any other jurisdiction that is apprehending these people.”

In Orange County alone, an estimated 40,000 motorists drive each day with suspended licenses, Gengler said.

Judges and administrative staff believe the figures are much higher.

For example, in South Orange County Municipal Court, 3,339 of the 14,524 criminal cases--23% of the total--that have been filed within the last 10 months involved 14601s, the legal code for people charged with driving while their licenses have been suspended for drunk driving, negligent driving or driving without insurance.

“I’m astounded at the number of people in South County who are caught driving without valid licenses,” said South County Municipal Judge Ronald P. Kireber, who recently transferred from North County Court in Fullerton.

Kireber and other judges say it is not difficult to predict if defendants will disobey their orders.

“These people are not being trapped,” Kireber said. “These are people who because of their records are repeatedly ordered not to drive, but you know they’re going to drive anyway when they got their car keys bulging out of their pockets.”

Judge Iles, who over the last 18 months has stiffened the sentences of dozens of drivers caught driving with suspended licenses, said that she “can tell when they’re going to defy you because after you tell them not to drive, they look straight at you and there’s this four-second pause. Then they say, “Oh, oh, ...OK!” And then you know they drove to court with their suspended license.”

Judges say they often spend up to five minutes lecturing defendants not to drive. One of the more memorable cases in South County Municipal Court involved a defendant remembered only as John, whose license was revoked because he was caught driving drunk.

For five minutes, Iles said, she urged him not to drive. Then she pointed to Deputy Marshal Karen Tantalo and said: “You see that bailiff there with the gun and the badge? Well, yesterday I told a man not to drive and he did. And she pulled him through the [door] window.”

“ ‘No, no, no, your honor,’ ” Iles quoted the young defendant as saying. “ ‘I wouldn’t drive.’ ”

A few minutes later Tantalo arrested the man as he attempted to drive away from the parking lot.

Bailiffs say they began following suspended drivers when they noticed that many people charged with 14601s were repeat offenders. Iles said bailiffs here are able to follow and arrest violators because the South County court facility, unlike others in the county, is somewhat compact.

The targets are randomly selected. But Tantalo and Deputy Marshal Tim Hoffman say they are more likely to follow defendants who were given strong admonitions against driving by the judges.

“It’s amazing how human nature surprises you,” Hoffman said. The defendants “fly in the face of common sense.”

The bailiffs call the assignments “fishing expeditions,” which makes Tantalo the department’s top angler. Tantalo, 33, has caught at least 50 drivers with suspended licenses since she began tracking them outside. Tantalo swears that she knows every hiding spot on the courthouse grounds.

“She’s a very special deputy,” Iles said. “She’s the only marshal who can look like a tree.”

Tantalo said the majority of drivers she catches are in their early 20s to mid -30s and have been brought to court for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“They are the type who would say, “Like, hey dude, surf was up and I couldn’t make it to my court appearance,” Kireber said. “Then they run into the court and find out that the courts are unbending.”

Once Iles was having lunch at a local restaurant and recognized a woman whose license she had revoked following a drunk driving conviction earlier in the day. The woman left the restaurant in her yellow Cadillac. Iles later told the woman’s lawyer that she had seen her driving, and the woman was brought back before Iles and sentenced to a year in jail.

Tantalo has developed some special “surveillance points” on the courthouse grounds from where she observes unsuspecting violators. Her khaki uniform serves as a perfect camouflage when she hides behind the eucalyptus trees outside the court.

Some violators try to elude her by parking their vehicles in nearby shopping centers located along Crown Valley Parkway. She follows them anyway and returns them to court in handcuffs.

Sometimes, the hide-and-seek game can be especially intriguing. The day she arrested Flores, for example, he seemed determined to “shake” her, she said. Flores allegedly made an entire loop around the courthouse before getting into his pickup truck. Tantalo had to hide behind a concrete wall, dart from behind one parked car to another and stoop behind some bushes before catching him.

Drivers are always surprised when Tantalo politely asks them to switch off the ignition and snaps on the handcuffs.

One man even applauded Tantalo in court after she caught him trying to sneak out of the parking lot. “ ‘She did a great job,’ ” Tantalo and other court staff recalled the man as saying. “ ‘I didn’t know what hit me.’ ”

Although she has arrested dozens of violators, Tantalo said she is still surprised when a suspended driver insists on driving out of the court’s parking lot when he could have easily turned over the wheel to a licensed driver. In one case, a young San Diego man was caught behind the wheel of his 18-wheeler while his father, a licensed driver, sat in the passenger seat.

“The challenge of these assignments is seeing whether the drivers are going to follow the orders of the court,” Tantalo said. “If they don’t, they’ll have it coming to them.”